India is a big Aviation market for the United States and one airport that is really booming with 186% growth in passenger numbers within the first two quarters of 2023 is San Francisco International Airport (SFO). To share more insight Kevin Bumen, CFO and Chief Commercial Officer, San Francisco International Airport in an Interview with Vishal Kashyap, Managing Editor, Aviation World discuss at length about the growth, future plans, association with Air India and may more interesting points. Excerpts…
There is always a great interest for Indian Carrier to operate to SFO. How do you see the relevance of existing route and addition of more flights in near future?
Air India has been a huge success story as far as SFO is concerned. During the pandemic there were few airlines that grew in our market which is quite remarkable for many reasons. When we look back over the last 4 years, the target to 2019 was just one destination initially with Delhi and of course they have grown now to three in a very short time.
They have essentially double the operation from 9 flights a week to 17 a week and which breaks down with majority to Delhi of course but having seen the other market in India with structure established, really chose the strength of the market across the entire country. Seat capacity has gone up from 2042 seats per week back in August 2019 and this August we are 4397 seats per week. It’s a huge increase. We look forward obviously potential for Mumbai, Bengaluru to get a daily service and then we also see future markets as Hyderabad and Chennai which can likely support flights as well.
What’s the exact number of traffic of San Francisco International Airport from India both in terms of connectivity and pax?
When we look at the overall area or market and its measured on the basis of frequency of daily passengers today. The market has a lot of potential and knows those passengers could be flowing in number of ways to and from but having that kind of strength in the region the opportunity for non-stop services is very strong.
It’s also been seen that India is primed for significant growth, especially in the luxury travel market. What’s your take on this transition?
Significant growth is happening and we have got 186 % increase just in the first half of this year. It’s extremely exciting and it speaks to the fact that SFO is ready. Our premium airport recently named by Wall Street Journal as number one airports in the United States. We have got so many memorable experiences that enhance the travel experience including the Grand Hyatt Hotel, a 4 star hotel connected to the transit system in the terminal. We have butler concierge services, we have an SFO museum, we have got duty free shopping, major luxury retails, etc. These are all source of wonderful amenities. We have amazing airline lounges and we are working with Air India for potential airport lounge at SFO, so that’s in the similar stages of planning. I really feel the market is ready and we demonstrated that with the rapid growth we had certainly challenging time for the industry.
How SFO Int. Airport would like to explore newer opportunities from India?
We certainly like to see more non-stop services to new destinations like Hyderabad and Chennai that I earlier mentioned and additional frequencies in existing Delhi market that we have today The growth across India is a very exciting prospect to us. India is certainly a large country and any part of the world you can fly non-stop and that is always a great convenience to the passengers. I think those would be two very important goals for us. We also look it at airports like Mumbai and Delhi that’s one of the best airports in the world as we look at the customer experience and certainly having SFO connected to two very high quality markets is of great importance to us and we look into our airport SQ ranking , SFO, Delhi and Mumbai are all top 10 in the world for customer experience.
So those who fly in these routes have an incredible airport experience that just adds to the strength of the market. It’s really nice when you see that balance in the market.
We also as an airport strive for carrier diversity in the market. We are number three in the US in the carrier diversity and we serve around 50 airlines and we feel that it brings value to the passengers both in terms of choice of carrier and adding in destination but certainly it also keeps pricing competitive.
We look forward to United returning to the market. They have obviously struggle in India due to the aerospace access to the Russia so if that issue evolves, United going to this market will be an important factor as well.
As part of the upcoming sales mission to India what are your primary objectives?
We get out to visit airlines from time to time and we really look forward to celebrate our strong relationship with Air India. But with focus on the future growth plans and as a carrier that’s is growing rapidly, time spent at HQs with the team really helps us to strengthen the relationship and clarify the planning on both sides so we work on closely together. Certainly we will be talking about many achievements of SFO and how we see our placement as a gateway to the North American market for Indian travelers and certainly our desire to assist in and support in Air India growth in the market. And then we will be spending time with the travel community and helping them learn more about SFO and some of the unique aspects of the airport and what sets us apart both as a west coast gateway in the US but just a getaway in the North America. So I want to sharing and learning and planning for the future.
What are new facilities added at SFO for both passengers facilitation and airlines for enhancing fleet management?
Our major project in the last few years that’s been opening up in phase is Terminal 1 and it brings a number of new enhancements to the airport. It brings several swing gates that are connected to our FIS on the Terminal A side of the international terminal. And bring several domestic gates as well. It’s a beautiful terminal and has won all kinds of awards. The final phase of that would be opening late next spring. So, it’s still in the final phase of construction but a majority of it will open by this time. And we begin working next year on project called ‘T3 west’ which is opposite side of the airport . It’s an area primarily used by United Airlines and it will take some gates that we have closed during construction and once it is open will have additional swing gates on that side of airport as well which is where Air India today operates in.
The star alliance side of the airport and that will create more international capacity. We expect that project will take about two and half to three years to complete the entire project so more to come and it is about growing our capacity for wide body international operations and than further down the road probably towards end of the decade we anticipate starting a new boarding area edge. That’s really on very early phase of planning but that would bring addition six wide body gates as well . That part will only open in 2030 but as we are on path to continue growth we see the gateways are key part of that to ensure that we have the capacity.
What’s the total pax capacity of SFO on annual basis both inbound and outbound? Also, number of aircraft movement on per hour basis as well as on average monthly basis?
We have average movements of 1000 aircraft per day with just 30000 in a month and up to 100 movements per hour depending upon what way the airport is configured . We have two sets of parallel runways with crossing, a complex airport geometry because we do routinely operate departure on one complex and arrival on the other one operating simultaneously crossing . So the capacity and movement is driven by which configuration airport is in. When we look at our passenger capacity our peak pre-covid we were about 58 million annual passenger , we are still rebuilding now anticipate being packed to pre-covid number by late next year, i.e., 2025. And where see our maximum capacity is 71-72 million pax which is really based on the airfield and obviously we have to keep the airfield in balance with the terminal.
Because of our runway configuration and runway layout the number of runways we see that capacity reach around 71-72 million expected to by late 2030s and it really depends on how quickly we arrive to the pre-covid numbers. Which we are still working towards but who knows if we keep growing then it might be achieved in next couple of years.
What’s the overall ranking of SFO in comparison to other US airports?
Based on passenger traffic the most recent ranking we had Number 14th within the US.I want to say pre-covid probably we were number 8 and we were number 2 in US in terms of non-stops flights to India but it is interesting to know that JFK is ahead of us 21 flights a week and we are 17 but when UNITED was flying and if they could be flying without the Russian Airspace issue, we have been Number 1 in the US for India. So that’s position we hold some time in the future as well.
How has been your journey at SFO?
I joined at a very interesting time because you know in 2020 we hadn’t found the bottom and in some sense we were in a very difficult position. But its really interesting to join an organisation and be the part of the rebuild. Both in terms of the air service and marketing with airlines, strategy and capital plan or commercial side.
It’s been a lot of work, it’s been greatly rewarding. We had to rebuild teams, rebuild strategies, every day we were working it seems like restoration and growth and that’s I think is the big turning point here since late last year and already this year we really started to shift the end from rebuilding and recovery to now the growth which is happening because one of the outcomes of everything has reshaped with covid during the certain times of the day even our passenger volumes are lower the airport is effectively busy because of the flights were scheduled.
We can have times over a day when we are busier than 2019 which is very exciting. That’s show we can operate a very high level even our capacity on hourly basis beyond we were before I have certainly enjoyed immensely specially serving probably my life and I work with great people, doing exciting things, really forging a future that looks a bit different than going back to 2019 and where we are going to be in 2025 and 2030 it look bit different now. India is a big part of that and we see a very bright future for India.
Any interesting information that you want to share with Aviation World readers?
I think SFO has been extremely excited about the growth in the Indian market. It’s been such a bright spark in everything that we have seen national growth and we look towards the continued growth. We look forward to the conversations with the travel community and airline community about working together on how we can build that future together really look forward to what comes next.
